Right about now, we should be gathering in the Park and Barracks Square every night, soaking up the beauty of early summer Fredericton, cursing the rain clouds and the mosquitoes, and taking in some fine Shakespeare. Instead, we’re cursing COVID-19.

However, if you’re missing Bard in the Barracks, you now have another viewing option on YouTube (along with Macbeth and King Lear announced in our post earlier this summer) with the addition of our 2012 production of Love’s Labour’s Lost! Our brilliant videographer Chris Giles laboured over the final edit of this one for many years. It was truly a labour of love for him… and now available for your viewing pleasure!

Love’s Labour’s Lost is one of Shakespeare’s wittiest comedies, and our production was set in the JFK/Mad Men-era early 1960s. The premise, in brief: four young noblemen decide to swear off women and all wordly pleasures and devote themselves to a year of monk-like study, when four comely young noblewomen show up at their kingdom on a diplomatic mission. What could possibly go wrong? Meanwhile, in the subplot, a fantastical (and possibly pretend) Spaniard, a pretentious schoolmaster and assorted other sidekicks create a hilariously bad play to entertain the royals (think the play of Pyramus and Thisbe in A Midsummer Night’s Dream).

Not produced as frequently as some of Shakespeare’s other comedies, Love’s Labour’s Lost is a rare treat. And 2012 was perhaps our worst year ever for rainouts, meaning not a lot of people got the chance to see this one. So now’s your chance to see it for the first time, or to revisit it. The production featured a stellar cast and, sadly, marked the final performance for our much missed dearly departed alumni Andrew Jones and Victor Stanton.

Enjoy the play, and the rest of your summer, everyone!